


We've Got A Ways To Go

by love_killed_the_superstar



Series: Always Be Free (Or Die Trying) [2]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Gen, Zombie Apocalypse, and also a jaded father's eyes, rosegreg and rosepearl are mentioned but not a huge part of the fic, side piece to bloodsport, the apocalypse through a child's eyes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-27
Updated: 2017-02-27
Packaged: 2018-09-27 05:12:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9973124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/love_killed_the_superstar/pseuds/love_killed_the_superstar
Summary: Greg missed the days of being an ordinary man.(Side story to Bloodsport. Just another day of single-handedly raising a five-year-old in the apocalypse.)





	

**Author's Note:**

> I've been listening to the song 'State I'm In' by needtobreathe for the past few days. And also reading back on some rping me and a friend have done set in an apocalypse universe.  
> This is set in the same AU as Bloodsport, so Steven is only five, and while Pearl and Sheena are readying to kick the rubies asses Greg and Steven are traversing the state in Greg's van which has definitely seen better days. I can't even imagine how badly living in the zombie apocalypse would fuck a kid up.

  


“Are we gonna make camp, Dad?”

“Soon, Schtoo-ball.”

Steven Universe found himself growing bored. It was just another day of sitting in the van while Dad drove along dusty roads, with the occasional break to take on what Dad called 'the zomzoms'. They looked kinda like they could have been people at some point, if not for the fact that they were always in various stages of decay and trying to chase the van.

Steven let out a little sigh. A few seconds later, another sigh.

“We can make camp in just another hour or so, kiddo. But we need to keep driving while we still have some light, understand?”

“Can we put on a CD?” Steven was fond of his dad's originals, particularly the eternally cheesy 'Let Me Drive My Van Into Your Heart'. “Or sing a song?”

“Too much noise might wake up the zomzoms, Steven,” Greg expressed tiredly. “I'm sorry, buddy. Maybe once we find a place to bunker down.”

Steven nodded glumly and peeked out of the passenger seat window once more.

It had been raining all day, and the sky was a muddy grey. The van kept splashing through puddles as they drove, and thinking about all that water made Steven nervous.

“Dad?” he mumbled.

“Steven?” Greg parroted in the same tone, eyes trained on the road, hands gripping the wheel a little tightly. Greg was known to express near endless patience for his son (with a five-year-old in the apocalypse, it was a part of the job description) but after almost crashing to avoid a deer, nearly running out of fuel, and having to stop to put a hit-and-run victim out of their misery, it hadn't been a stellar day and he found himself almost at the end of his rope.

“Dad, I needa pee.”

Greg glanced over at his son.

“Right now? Do you think you can hold it?”

Steven shook his head and chewed his lip.

“Okay, okay. All right, I'll pull over.”

Greg had tried before to show Steven how to pee in bottles in the case of emergencies, but Steven really didn't like to, and they needed to save their empty bottles for filling up on water whenever they had the chance. And he had tried his best to reinforce that Steven was still a big boy if he had accidents, but they were limited on clean clothes.

Steven held onto the front of his pants obediently while Greg pulled onto the side of the road. They had been driving through a dense forested area, with a seemingly endless stretch of trees on either side, but to Steven's relief he couldn't see any zomzoms nearby.

“All right. We'll pee, do a little scavenging for food, and then we'll see about setting up camp, okay? If I park the van in between some of the trees it'll be a risky parallel park but we'll be nice and hidden. Sound good?”

Steven nodded and Greg held his breath as he gently manoeuvred the van in between a few trees with considerable space between them. The paintwork on his prized Mr Universe van became a little scratched, but after four months in the apocalypse, it was already a sight for sore eyes.

The moment they were safely parked (and Greg had done a quick sweep of the surrounding trees and hidden the van's brighter paintwork with some debris from the ground) Greg opened Steven's side door.

“Okay, you can hop out now, kiddo.”

Steven's pink sandals sank into the soft, moist earth beneath them, and his feet crunched over pine needles on the forest floor as he moved to take his dad's hand. Greg led him over to pee behind a tree beside the van, giving him some privacy as he went, and taking the chance to empty his own bladder while they had the chance. Before long, Steven's little hand reached out, and Greg opened up the back of the van, returning moments later with a roll of toilet paper. He sorted out a few squares (he had to ration it out now that they had a limited supply) and began to dig a small hole for them to dispose of the paper.

He took the used wad from his son, who then requested the small bottle of hand sanitiser that had become Greg's current favourite Christmas gift from his girlfriend's ex. The one Christmas dinner he and Pearl had attended simultaneously had gone sourly, and he hadn't understood at the time what the purpose was for her gifting him with hand sanitiser when he had a good sink and bar of soap in the wonky house on the beach he and Rose had been sharing. But since this apocalypse business had started, it had become one of his prized possessions.

“All right,” declared Greg, once both he and Steven were clean and zipped up once more. “Now that we've given back to nature, it's time to scavenge! You ready, buddy?”

Steven giggled and nodded. Greg brought out the old reliable travel pack, complete with an emergency medical kit, a bottle of water and a strip of jerky to share. They both wrapped up for the cool October afternoon (Steven in his pink winter coat and rain boots, and Greg in his favourite cherry sweater and dirty red sneakers) and set off on their expedition.

Steven glanced up at his father as they walked briskly through the bushes. Greg's mouth was pulled into a stern line, no doubt on the alert for any zomzoms to come bursting out of the shadows, and as bored as he felt, Steven knew breaking into song wasn't going to fly in this situation. He squeezed his dad's hand and stayed closer to his side.

Greg, sensing his child's anxiety, broke the silence.

“I spy... something... blue.”

Steven perked up.

“Bloobries!”

“Good guess! But not quite that.”

Steven pursed his lips, thinking hard, before exclaiming, “The ocean!”

Greg peered around and knew for a fact that there were no oceans remotely nearby. “Very creative, Schtoo-ball! But no cigar. Try again.”

Steven hummed loudly, deep in thought.

“Keep the humming down a little, buddy,” Greg coaxed, glancing around them to check they weren't being followed. Steven stopped and let out a little sigh.

“I dunno what else could be blue, Dad.”

“Lets see... it's got two legs, and you're always looking for them in the mornings.”

Greg leaned down and mussed up Steven's hair affectionately.

“A pokemon?”

That drew a laugh out of Greg.

“Something on your body, kiddo.”

Steven glanced down, where his eyes landed on his pants, and he gasped.

“My pants!”

Greg grinned. “That's it, Steven! You can have an extra strip of jerky tonight, young man!”

Steven beamed back at him and squeezed his hand tight, before his eyes tracked over to a nearby patch of brambles. He stabbed a finger in the general direction.

“Blueberries, Dad!”

Greg leaned down to inspect them, before giving his son a solemn thumbs up.

“Excellent work, young scout! Now it's time to collect them. We can wash them with the water we collected today.” He brought out a small tupperware box with a pink lid, Steven's favourite, and handed it to his son. “Be careful collecting them, don't wanna prick your finger. If you see a zomzom, throw the lid at its face, okay? And then run to my side as fast as you can, but try and be quiet. Got it, little man?”

Steven nodded, chest puffed out in pride with this responsibility, and began to collect handfuls of berries, popping them into the tub with a concentrated expression. Meanwhile, Greg kept watch, gaze drifting down to the chain around his neck. When he was certain that Steven was preoccupied and they were safe, he pulled out the locket that had been gifted to him by his late partner.

Rose had had it engraved with a little rose by a high school friend of hers whom she had since fallen out with for reasons that hadn't been disclosed to him (and now, he mused, in the event of her death, he would never know). Originally it had held a picture of her and Pearl in it, their faces squished closely together in a photo booth, but it had been replaced by a picture of the two of them at the local Funland, chowing down on hot dogs when she had given it to him on the last valentines day they had spent together.

He wasn't sure what to think knowing it had, at one time, been worn by Rose to keep the memory of her ex close to her, and had since been passed on to him. Sometimes he felt a weird guilt, since he and Rose had already been seeing one another for months before she broke things off with Pearl. Other times, he acknowledged that Pearl had known Rose was polyamorous, and she had had other partners before, albeit usually for sexual purposes and not a serious romantic relationship.

Mostly, he chose not to think about it, because at the end of the day, Rose was dead and Pearl was just as much Steven's godmother as she was Rose's ex-girlfriend. None of this drama mattered anymore, and in the middle of an apocalypse, did he really have time to internally debate on whether it was morally sound for him to still have this locket in the first place?

A low growl sounded somewhere beyond Greg's vision, and he snapped out of his thoughts in a heartbeat, whirling around to see Steven just inches away from a zombie, oblivious to its prescence.

“Steven!” Greg cried, ignoring his own rule of 'inside voices, even outside' that had been established in the event of the outbreak. Steven's head shot up and he looked at his dad in a mixture of confusion and worry, before sensing the zomzom behind him and shrieking. It took another weak step towards him (Greg realised this one was in a seriously bad state of decomposition for only four months, probably due to the damp conditions of the forest) and reached its hand out, and with another cry Steven hurled the tupperware lid at it, hitting it square in the face and causing it to grunt, temporarily stunning it.

Steven threw himself behind his dad, and Greg told ushered Steven behind a tree. Three more zomzoms had followed the noise they had made, and were now moving towards the clearing with more speed than the first. Heart beating fast, Greg hoisted Steven up by the armpits and sat him on a high up branch, as far as he could reach on the tips of his toes.

“Steven, we're going to play the quiet game,” Greg said steadily.

Steven's eyes filled up with tears and he gripped the tree branch, his lower lip wobbling.

“I don't like the quiet game,” he whimpered.

“I know buddy, I know. But we have to. Shut your eyes and think about something happy, and don't open them again until I tell you to. Okay?”

Trembling, Steven nodded, and squeezed his eyes shut.

Greg reached in his pack for his waffle iron and braced himself.

Up in the tree, Steven thought long and hard about his old pet Lion, a large cat that had once belonged to his mom from before she and Dad had met. He had lived two lives, sometimes running around and playing, and sometimes sulking or napping. Though he and Lion had had more of a love/hate relationship than anything, Steven had cried when Lion had escaped the van one day when he and Dad were on a scavenger hunt for food and clothes. They had searched for hours, but in the end Lion never came back. Dad said cats were like that sometimes, but they'd had to move on and Steven wondered if Lion was still roaming the store, dozing on cardboard boxes and chasing away zomzoms with his awesome cat screeches.

After an indefinite amount of time, he heard his dad calling him again, and felt hands hardened by years of guitar playing lifting him out of the tree. The waffle iron was stuffed hastily back onto his pack, leaving a dark stain seeping through, and the zomzoms were lying on the ground, blood oozing from their heads.

Steven whimpered at the sight, and Greg held him close, pressing his head into his shoulder.

“Don't look, buddy. Come on, lets go back to the van. I'm so sorry.”

  


…

  


Greg missed the days of being an ordinary man.

True, things hadn't been easy raising Steven on his own. Of course, Vidalia had lent a hand, knowing a thing or two about raising a kid single-handedly, and once Rose's friends had spent some time grieving they had gravitated back into his life. Steven loved Garnet, Amethyst and Pearl. It took him another couple of years to get to know Rose's other sister, Jasper, and her girlfriend Lapis, but they had also been taken by his sunny disposition and had regularly babysitted when Greg needed to work late at the car wash. It had been hard earning enough to keep the house, and he'd ended up having to sell the dondai he and Rose had shared to Pearl in order to make ends meet.

Compared to having to beat zombie heads in with his waffle iron, Greg would give anything to have that life back.

He and Steven had decided against lighting a camp fire tonight, instead opting to split jerky and a can of peaches for dinner and eating from the safety of the locked van. Just as well, since the storm clouds were rolling in.

“Dad?” piped up Steven, huddled inside his sleeping bag and fidgeting.

“Yeah, kiddo?” Greg asked, propping himself up on one elbow.

“I... I don't like the quiet game. I don't wanna play it anymore.”

Greg's shoulders slumped.

“...Me either, Steven. I'm sorry.”

It wasn't easy, having to trust Steven not to watch as he battered zombies until they stopped twitching. He often wondered how badly he would end up fucking up his kid in this apocalypse. How was a five-year-old kid supposed to have a normal childhood constantly stuck inside a van and hearing his father killing zomzoms day in and day out?

“Do we hafta play it forever?” Steven asked, big brown eyes peering up at his father sadly. Greg's gut twisted, and he shut off the flashlight and scooted over in his sleeping bag to lie down next to his son.

“I don't know, buddy. This zomzom business could be sorted out as soon as next year. But... it could also be a while before we can stop playing the quiet game. This isn't like in cartoons anymore, if we don't play the quiet game when the zomzoms are around we could... end up just like them. I don't want that for you, it'd break my heart.”

The sound of rain pattering against the roof filled the silence, and Steven let out a sad little sigh.

“I hope it's over soon, Dad.”

Greg scooped up his son into his arms and rested his cheek against his son's mass of dark curls, breathing in deeply.

“Me too, Schtoo-ball. Now, time for sleeping, okay?”

Steven nodded, yawning, and it was a matter of minutes before his body slackened in Greg's arms. He clutched Rose's locket in one hand, arms still firmly tucked around his son, and Greg Universe closed his eyes.

   


**Author's Note:**

> Yes, the waffle iron was totally a throwback too laser light cannon. If Greg was prepared to waffle someone for breaking into his van, what do you think he would do to a zomzom trying to prey on his kid?  
> Not sure yet if this'll just be a standalone or if I'll add to it later on, but for now here's a little side story to Bloodsport since I have a habit of writing side stories when I can't figure out where the main fic is going or I'm having trouble getting the words down (see my 1960s au).  
> Anyway, let me know what you think??? I tried to write it more innocent in tone since it was about a young Steven and Greg, rather than the grungy hot mess that bloodsport is.


End file.
